24 June 2015

in the belfry

Did anyone expect the nocturnal effects of the cat door? That wasn't on my radar when I was excited to install it, giddy at the prospect of no litter box or having to get up in the middle of the night to let the cat out. Ha, pipe dreams.

Sure, the occasional critter was expected. She brings them in fairly regularly. I've woken Chris up to kill big roaches, and we had a lizard live in our bathroom for 3 days, amongst the other random critters she brings in that eventually either disappear or die or get moved back outside. One there was even one of those huge green locust things. We have also been woken up in the wee hours of the morning by more significant animals like a mouse, and most recently, a bat.

Last night I heard a really strange noise around 4am. I woke up, turned on the lamp, and saw what looked like a large moth flying around, hitting the curtain. Chris and I both jumped out of bed to watch it fly into the ceiling fan with the same thud as before, and fall gracefully onto the bed. Okay, the large moth was actually a bat. A freaking bat. In my bedroom. At 4am. On my bed. A bat.

For a moment Chris and I stood on either side of the bed, looking at each other and down at the bat, which seemed to have stunned itself pretty good flying into the fan. It started to move, so I threw the sheet over it. After a few minutes of confused, sleepy debate where I retardedly suggested it came down the chimney, and a reference to Black Sheep, we wrapped it in the bedsheet and tossed it outside. Poor thing gave a feeble attempt to fly before it gave up and sat there on the deck. We changed the bedsheets and went back to sleep while the cat seemed irked that we got rid of her prey.

Gave me the heebie jeebies because there's no way that Pumpkin could catch a healthy bat. What kind of sickness/injury did it have? I mean, it flew right into the ceiling fan. Aren't bats supposed to have an excellent sense of direction?